


keep starting again

by captainofthegreenpeas



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Grief, Loss, Masoncoin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 17:12:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13839321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainofthegreenpeas/pseuds/captainofthegreenpeas
Summary: President Snow's execution and its aftermath, from Johanna's POV.





	keep starting again

**Author's Note:**

> Masoncoin happened in Mockingjay part 2 and you can't convince me otherwise

It was finally happening, Johanna thought. They were all in their places. After all this time, her tormentor was metres away, powerless at last. _You thought this could never happen, but it did. I’m alive, you will die. You will die knowing I saw you, knowing I will live and keep living, love and keep loving._  

 

 

Johanna stared at him, willing him to look at her but not once did he even acknowledge her presence. _Notice me, look at me. I will see the light leave your eyes. I will see you screaming. I will see you break. I will see it happen and never forget._

 

Brainless had her bow in hand, the arrow was on the string, bliss was one shot away, the bow was moving, what-

 

For a moment she was confused. Go back, she thought, that wasn’t it- why- Alma-

 

Alma.

 

Everything seemed to disconnect, her mouth from her head, her voice, her eyes from the world around her, she had stepped into the looking glass, this was the wrong side, what was happening, go back, this was wrong, why was she falling, why was Alma falling, wrong person-

 

“No!” It was an unimaginative thing to scream, but there was no other word for it. No. This wasn’t happening, why was this happening, go back-

 

Katniss.

 

“I’LL KILL YOU!” She was running, the world bending and churning as her legs gave way and wiry arms trapped her “I’LL KILL YOU AND I’LL-I’LL-”

 

“Stop it!” Haymitch’s voice in her ear, but it came and went from the other side of thick glass. “There’s nothing you can do. She’s dead.”

 

Something was starting to grip at her throat, nobody’s hands, forcing her to splutter.

 

“Al-Alma… th-the arrow… she shot her… the arrow…”

 

Laughter.

 

_I will kill him. I will shove my hand through his face and out his eyes and grind his bones and drag his screaming and rip his nerves and shred his flesh and strip it from his bones-_

 

“LET ME GO!”

  
“Wanna bet?” Haymitch’s voice was sour. “With you like this right now?”

 

“No- no I have to- Alma-”

  
“You’re in shock.”

  
“NO, I’M ANGRY!” She snatched at him, he wasn’t worth attacking but he was all she had. He had her arms pinioned, but she was stronger, she could break free, she could run-

 

Snow vanished from sight, still laughing, still laughing she would tear that laugh right out but he was vanishing- maybe if she ran but she couldn’t because Haymitch- _I will kill you at least, yes, I will, I can’t kill her but I can kill you and they’ll kill me but what does it matter, what would they be killing-_

 

“…Alma.” 

* * *

  
Johanna leaned on her folded arms, flicking idly at some spinning top on the dining table. She didn’t know who its previous owner was and didn’t care. They were probably long dead anyway. She flicked too hard and it clacked against the table as it bounced off. She made a point of refusing to pick it up.

  
Johanna had also made a deliberate point of vandalising her room in the mansion, inventing new ways to warp and destroy it.

  
 _It’s an art piece,_ she told the silent slaves. _It represents Panem. Pretentious and worthless and broken._

  
She would get in trouble for it, but that was half the fun. Authority was as pretentious and worthless and broken as the junk in her room. She felt right at home in it.

 

 _Stop listening for her footstep_ , she reminded herself. _You won’t ever hear it again. It’s all pointless. You’re in the present, she is in the past._

 

 _What do I do now?!_ That question stabbed through her. _What am I fit for?_

  
Victor, but no victory. In love, without a lover. Axewoman, but kept from her axe. Alive; but never more lifeless.

 

 _I hate myself. I should be used to this by now. I had enough practice at it. Dragged uselessly across Panem, across my life, no more direction or logic in it than a will o'the wisp. Picked up and dropped in the Capitol, the arena, the Capitol again, Seven, the Capitol, the arena, the Capitol- Thirteen. Out of danger into danger._ It was enough to make you nostalgic.

  
 _Would I have believed it?_ She thought. _That I would enter a broken Capitol holding the hand- holding hands!- with the president of District Thirteen._

  
_I would have thought I was mad._

  
_But wait. I am mad._

 

It was ridiculous, to have been crushed so hard, to have been electrocuted and beaten and broken and then- over. Dropped into concrete world with brainless and lover boy and crazy and Finnick.

 

And Alma.

 

 _Dare I go back to Thirteen?_ Johanna had had no intention of going back there. She was going to stay here with Alma, by her side for that interim, for every interim thereafter, but that was as pointless as her life. This city was back to its usual hideous self now. She wouldn’t stay here another stinking second longer. Back to Seven? That was as distant as another world.

 

Maybe Four. She and Annie could start a Widow’s Club. Have coffee mornings. She cackled at the thought. They wouldn’t be short of members.

 

Maybe Twelve. Lots of dead people there, she’d fit right in. But that place would stink of brainless.

 

But wherever she went, she’d need something to do. Purpose. If she could be bothered. Every purpose was pointless. She had no education, no skills except keeping her heart beating and her axe sharp. Maybe she would end her life doing something trite like knitting like an old matron. Trust her to do that. Or write some abysmal memoirs. She might do that, just to foist its awfulness on the world. After all the world had heaped on her, Johanna had earned the right to some payback.

 

 _I cut down trees. I can’t plant them_. At that thought she instinctively reached for the pine needle bunch in her pocket and pillowed her nose in it. Home. She was an idiot, but that was the only place she could go.

 

 _Katniss gave me this_. She tried to summon up hatred for brainless, picking apart the bundle until it was a pile of scraps, but the tears were just tears; and the tears were just tears. Her hatred was now as broken as she was now. There was no point hating brainless.

 

 _Go back home,_ she thought. _Leave Alma and Katniss and everything all behind. She had voted, she couldn’t remember who for. There was nothing more for her to do here. That was enough. Go back home and start again._

_Keep starting again._


End file.
